The classical construction of the violin is over one hundred years old. As stated in U.S. Pat. No. 3,964,362, the shape of the violin and the beauty of its tone is the product of fine materials, long hours of painstaking efforts by skilled craftsmen, and extended periods of aging and adjustment, all of which have resulted in a costly instrument. Recognizing that such violins, which are hand made and fabricated from high grade wood are expensive, attention has been directed to making stringed instruments, including violins, from non-wooden materials, such as, for example, plastics, in order that such instruments can be factory-made, inexpensively. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 3,427,915 discloses a violin having front and back plates made from non-wooden materials intended to match the acoustic properties of a high-grade violin. According to said patent, this is accomplished by the application of certain "mathematical rules" for selecting materials having suitable combinations of density, flexural modules, and damping factors.
According to another patent, i.e., U.S. Pat. No. 3,618,442, foamed materials of various synthetic resins have been used for making vibrating plates of sound instruments, such as, piano or guitar. Such resins include polystyrene, polyvinylchloride and the like.
Thus, while it has generally been recognized that plastic violins can be made less expensively than wood violins, it has also been recognized that plastic violins do not exhibit the acoustic quality and tone consistency of wood violins. The disparity in acoustic qualities of these different violins is primarily due to difficulties inherent in the properties of plastic materials. When made of plastic, variations in pressure and ambient temperature can cause the neck portion of the violin to bend forward thus causing variations in the tension of the violin strings and, consequently, variations in the height of the string relative to the finger board. Moreover, when the neck of a plastic violin bends, it remains bent and does not return to its original shape or position. These variations make it very difficult to tune up the strings and practically impossible to play the violin with consistent notes or tunes.
It is an object of this invention to provide a plastic string instrument, particularly a plastic violin, having the same acoustic properties as high-grade wood violins.
It is a further object of this invention to provide a plastic violin construction which is stabilized against bending of the violin's neck due to variations in ambient temperatures and changes in pressure.
It is another object of this invention to provide a plastic violin construction which has a relatively fixed and constant height from the strings to the finger board regardless of the pressures exerted on the strings and irrespective of the variations in ambient temperatures.
It is also a feature of the present invention to provide plastic violins which can be mass-produced and factory-made inexpensively as compared to hand-made wood violins.
Other objects and features of the present invention will be more readily understood from the ensuing detailed description and the accompanying drawings.